Princess Diana ‘Ripped’ out Part of Her 1996 Met Gala Dress to Make It ‘Much More Sensuous,’ Designer Says: ‘I Couldn’t Believe It’
Princess Diana surprised even the designer behind the blue Christian Dior slip dress she wore to the 1996 Met Gala. According to John Galliano, the French fashion house’s then-creative director, the late British royal “ripped out the corset” of her dress, which he only found out when she arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Diana refused to wear pink to the 1996 Met Gala despite Galliano’s urging
Among Diana’s many memorable fashion moments is her 1996 Met Gala dress. A guest of Harper’s Bazaar magazine editor Liz Tilberis, Diana attended the December 1996 event, which centered around Christian Dior.
John Galliano, who had taken over as creative director shortly before the Met Gala at the time, recalled dressing Diana in the new Hulu docuseries, In Vogue: The 90s.
“I remember one day we all jumped into this old van, and we went to London, where we met Princess Diana. She’d been invited to the Met, and she would wear one of my dresses,” he said.
For the occasion, Diana wore a navy blue silk slip dress with lace details, complete with a pearl choker from the royal family’s collection of jewelry and a Lady Dior handbag—renamed in her honor—after carrying it many times earlier in the decade.
Although, as Galliano admitted, the final look’s color wasn’t originally what he had in mind. “It was like a blessing. I mean, wow. We went to Kensington Palace and discussed drawings, and I was trying to push for pink, but she was not having it. ‘No, not pink!’ That was real, real fun.”
The design, he explained, was then meticulously made. “So we did the dress and subsequent fittings, and it was beautifully done. You know, very kind of correct. You know, the corset—everything was correct.”
Galliano approved of Diana ‘ripping out the corset’ of her Met Gala dress
“Fast-forward to the event, and I just remember her getting out of the car,” Galliano continued, noting a sense of shock immediately washed over him. “I couldn’t believe it. She’d ripped the corset out.”
Despite his surprise, Diana’s decision to remove the corset added a “more sensuous” element. “She didn’t want to wear the corset. She felt so liberated,” he said. “She’d torn the corset out. The dress was much more sensuous.”
“The cameras went mental. The paparazzi was blinding, which made the dress really bling and the jewels and everything,” he added. “I mean, wow! Diana was my first couture client.”
Deciding to free herself from the constrictions of a corset for the evening came at a time when Diana had left behind the constraints of royal life. She and King Charles III, then the Prince of Wales, had officially divorced earlier the same year after separating in 1992.
No longer a working royal—like her youngest son, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle have been since 2020—Diana focused her energy on a select group of charitable causes.
Shortly after Diana’s Met Gala appearance, Galliano unveiled his first couture collection for the House of Dior. (It included Diana’s dress). He maintained his post before getting fired in 2011 following antisemitic and racist incidents, returning to the fashion world in 2014.
Diana came close to wearing something else to the Met Gala
The now-iconic look of Diana’s very nearly didn’t happen. As the Daily Mail once noted, Diana felt it might’ve been too “racy” for her. “In fact, [she] very nearly didn’t wear the dress to New York’s Met Gala for fear Prince William, then 14, wouldn’t like it being so revealing.”
Of course, Diana did ultimately wear the Dior dress to the Met Gala, adding another page to her fashion icon book less than a year before her August 1997 death.
